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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25660990">And It Was Good</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/willowcrowned/pseuds/willowcrowned'>willowcrowned</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood &amp; Manga</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ed and Al are Gods AU, EdLing for like half a page, M/M, not tagged as underage bc Ed is 3000, the Elrics are even more terrifying than usual</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 03:08:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>12,669</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25660990</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/willowcrowned/pseuds/willowcrowned</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>'Edward Elric was born with a sun inside him and white fire running through his veins. The first time he opened his eyes, they burned with an untouchable heat.<br/>His father had stumbled back in surprise, clutching the wall, but his mother had merely held him closer.<br/>“It’s alright, dear,” she said, exhausted. “He’s still our son.”<br/>“No,” Hohenheim had shaken his head.  “Not quite.” '</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Alphonse Elric &amp; Edward Elric, Edward Elric &amp; Winry Rockbell, Edward Elric/Roy Mustang</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>517</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>And It Was Good</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">


        <li>
            Inspired by

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/9645587">Know the Difference</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShanaStoryteller/pseuds/ShanaStoryteller">ShanaStoryteller</a>.
        </li>

    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This was initially a remix of <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/9645587">Know the Difference</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShanaStoryteller/pseuds/ShanaStoryteller">Shanastoryteller</a>. The intention was to change the premise from angels to gods, and use Brotherhood instead of '03, but keep it very similar. Then it got away from me thematically. Then structurally. Then stylistically.<br/>I don't think it resembles KTD anymore, except perhaps cursorily and in that there are two or three stolen lines.</p><p>Title is from the beginning of Bereshit 'וַיַּ֧רְא אֱלֹהִ֛ים אֶת־הָא֖וֹר כִּי־ט֑וֹב' which one can (and will, if that one is me) roughly translate to 'And god saw the light, and that it was good.' The motif is then repeated seven times, once for each of the seven days. I liked it and thought it fit.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Edward Elric was born with a sun inside him and white fire running through his veins. The first time he opened his eyes, they burned with an untouchable heat.   </p><p>His father had stumbled back in surprise, clutching the wall, but his mother had merely held him closer.  </p><p>“It’s alright, dear,” she said, exhausted. “He’s still our son.”  </p><p>“No,” Hohenheim had shaken his head.  “Not quite.”  </p><p>  </p><p>Liore is filled with sun and blood and hate. Godless, some would call it— too full of uncaring, self-interested creatures. Ed isn’t so sure about that. After all, he and Al are living proof that divinity has nothing to do with selflessness.  </p><p>The Colonel had sent them after Cornello, knowing it was their sort of thing. Knowing and yet not knowing, because he had sent them there for the alchemy, but they had gone for the god. (Sometimes Ed suspects that the Colonel does know, when he gives Ed and Al those strange sidelong glances with a look in his eye that means he senses the power, even if he cannot understand how it got there.)  </p><p>Cornello falls, because of course he does. What kind of terrible alchemists would they be if they let a man claiming science had nothing on god go wandering around, promising dead lovers and children to the already forlorn? Behind him falls Lito, because what kind of terrible gods would they be if they let a human masquerade as a sworn brother of theirs?  </p><p>When they get back, the Colonel gives Ed and Al a long appraising look and says nothing.   </p><p>Ed tells him to shut it.  </p><p>  </p><p>It was Winry who had figured it out first.  </p><p>She had walked into their room the night after the gate, when Ed was still in too much pain to sleep and Al hadn’t yet realized that he couldn’t. She had come in, fists clenched (always ready for a fight, even if she wasn’t born to it), and demanded to know who they were.  </p><p>“You’re different,” she had said. “On the inside. Who are you, and what have you done with Ed and Al?”  </p><p>It took them hours to convince her, partially because they hadn’t really convinced themselves yet. It is one thing to be born with a sun inside you; it is another to know that the sun is there— to understand what it means.   </p><p>When Ed had stood there in the void, Truth had cackled and cackled and Ed had remembered the space beyond Truth, where life and death ceased and all was ineffable and immutable. He had been there, once, when he had been something else.  </p><p>“Welcome back,” Truth had said, and Ed had taken one look and ripped off his arm to save his brother before marching back out the door. He’d never really liked family reunions anyways.  </p><p>He told Winry that— told Al that, because he hadn’t yet— and Winry had dragged Ed’s mattress to the floor so he could lie in a pile with her and Al. None of them slept that night. Ed was still in pain, and Al couldn’t, of course, and Winry refused to close her eyes in case she woke up and the both of them had unraveled in to nothing.  </p><p>  </p><p>It’s strange, Ed thinks while being tackled by Alexander, that he hasn’t played like this in years.   </p><p>He’s fifteen. He should be riding his bike on the dirt roads of Resembool, skipping math class with Al and Winry, and trespassing in people’s orchards just to grab an apple. Instead, he’s spent the last three years of his life chasing rumors and fighting monsters in the shapes of men. He’s not a kid— he hasn’t been one in years— but sometimes he misses the kid he could have been.  </p><p>Nina is adorable and sweet and rambunctious and everything they could have wished for in a younger sister. More than that, she knows what it’s like to have absent parents— to have to teach yourself how to boil water and use knives and throw together the only things left in the pantry just so you can eat. She is easy to understand and easier to love.  </p><p>The second night, when Ed’s head is swimming with the memories of the four of them on the grass instead of the usual onslaught of formulas and circles, he hears her prayers in his dreams.  </p><p><em> Come back,  </em> she asks,  <em> Come </em> <em>  back and play with me. </em>  </p><p>In the morning, Ed wakes up and meets Al’s eyes. He barely needs to say what he heard before Al is nodding in agreement. They will go back and visit her, they will be the family she doesn’t have.  </p><p><em> Here </em> , they think,  <em> Here </em> <em>  is someone who needs our help. Here is someone whose prayers we can answer </em>.  </p><p>But he and Al missed the signs, missed the screams that must have come after her prayers. Shou Tucker stands there smiling in front of his chimera— his daughter— and talks about progress and scientific exploration, and Ed cannot control himself.  </p><p>He is no gentle healer, no peace-bringer. He cannot save Nina, so he lets out the white fire in his veins and lets the sun inside him consume him from the inside out.   </p><p>When Al pulls him back, Shou Tucker is covered in burns, and Nina is shaking as if she is about to cry. He cannot bring himself to regret it.   </p><p>  </p><p>“Can’t you just use your powers to get your bodies back?” Granny had asked once they’d told her what they were.  </p><p>“No,” Ed had said.   </p><p>Divinity is something of unlife and undeath; it can’t touch humans in a way that matters. Souls are warm and living and something wholly unlike the existence that had stretched beyond the Truth. That was why he and Al had given up the unlife in the first place. Truth may know all, but it can never understand.  </p><p>  </p><p>Ed can’t bring himself to fight Scar. He should at least try, he knows that. The guy is a homicidal maniac who thinks it’s a good idea to kill kids. But he can’t stop thinking that maybe he deserves it.  </p><p>He has done nothing to earn Scar’s ire; he is as much of the desert as all the Ishvalans. Had he been able to, he would have protected them with his life. He would have stopped the Amestrian military in its tracks and cleansed the bloodstains with holy fire.  </p><p>But he is not innocent.   </p><p>He didn’t save Nina and he didn’t save Al. That’s his job— that’s what he’s supposed to do: help his people, bring light and knowledge. Instead, he left two children stranded in unfamiliar bodies, confused and isolated.  </p><p>Scar breaks his arm, and he makes a deal. At least this way, Al won’t die. At least this way, he can protect the last of the Xerxians, the last of his people.  </p><p>But Mustang distracts Scar, and Hawkeye protects Mustang, and Armstrong saves all four of them. Ed watches these people— a crematorium in the shape of a man, an executioner who never let her victims say goodbye, and a coward who couldn’t even stop them from killing children. He watches these people, stained with sin and full of courage and kindness, and whatever snapped when he failed Nina, reforms.  </p><p>He is no savior, but these people don’t need a savior. They just need him as he is. He can do that; he can be Edward Elric, god and man, for these people— for <em> his </em>people.  </p><p>  </p><p>During the year that Ed’s arm and leg were healing, he and Al hadn’t talked about where they would go. Moving forward, yes. They had done more research in that year than most people would do in their entire lives and Ed had still been recovering. But they hadn’t talked about where they would go— if they would accept the Lieutenant Colonel’s offer.   </p><p>In the end, it hadn’t mattered. The second they got to the train station, they could feel where they were headed. Xerxes was a magnet, pulling them into the desert’s waiting arms.  </p><p>The sand had been coarse and white-hot and off-beige and nothing had ever felt so much like home.   </p><p>They were born of the desert. They had always been desert gods, harsh, unyielding, and full of light. They had been born in the space beyond Truth, where the prayers of men flitted and the dreams of their prayers grew arms and legs and called themselves gods. They had been born in that place, where heat and cold are only concepts of numbers that are only concepts, but it is not their sire. It is not their home.  </p><p>  </p><p>He hasn’t told anyone this, but when he first met Bradley, during the exam, he could hear the souls of his people screaming.  </p><p>Ed came into existence in the void beyond truth. The core of his being— the source of his divinity— are the first prayers that found their way there; he is made from his people’s fervent hopes and desperate dreams and hidden desires. It appears he can still hear the wishes of his people when he gets close. It seems that being in a philosopher’s stone is one long, endless nightmare— the perfect state for them to scream for release and Ed to hear them and not be able to do anything.  </p><p>He attacks Bradley— he can’t help himself. The knowledge that Bradley is made of his people is thick and acidic on his tongue. He strikes to kill.  </p><p>But he cannot land the blow.  </p><p>He lets people think— lets <em> Bradley </em> think— that he is slow and reckless and perfectly human. In truth, he heard his people screaming, wishing for death, and he could not kill them. He is a god of wisdom, of enlightenment. He was not meant as a savior.  </p><p>  </p><p>He and Al go to the fifth laboratory.  </p><p>They know they will find a transmutation circle, but that’s not what they’re looking for. There is something wrong with this country, something wrong with its military and its alchemy, and they intend to find out what.  </p><p>Ed defeats the brothers and Al defeats Barry, and then Lust and Envy interfere and Ed finally understands why he’s heard screaming from inside the earth since he emerged from Truth and remembered who he was. Bradley was too human for him to feel it and understand, but Lust and Envy are pure homunculus. They are what’s in the ground.  </p><p>Ed feels sick, and he lets Envy knock him out. He can’t afford to show his cards this early in the game. There’s something older and more powerful at play here than the homunculi.  </p><p>  </p><p>When Ed had left Truth’s void, he had thought he knew what he was trading. Only once he saw Al’s soul bound to the armor did he understand. His price hadn’t been an arm and a leg, his price had been to watch his brother live without living, forced halfway between life and unlife. And how fucking fucked up is that? That his brother has to suffer just to teach him a lesson. Equivalent exchange is never equivalent. No knowledge is worth the suffering of his brother.  </p><p>  </p><p>Al has been avoiding him since the fifth laboratory and Ed doesn’t know why. He was stupid and reckless, sure, but he’s gotten way more injured on several occasions and Al hadn’t avoided him like this.   </p><p>Of course, the second Al is in the room, he has to go and fuck it up.  </p><p>He didn’t mean what he said— not really. A bigger body would be nice, but he remembers the place beyond the void and the lack of sensation— of anything— that it entailed. He knows that it was all his fault— that Al must blame him for what he did. He had been thoughtless and reckless then and he’s thoughtless and reckless now.   </p><p>Al stands, glaring at him, and Ed’s heart weighs heavy in his chest.  </p><p>Al should be crying right now, Ed thinks numbly. Al had always cried whenever he’d gotten upset or angry. Ed was the one who would shut down and go cold. Instead, Al is an empty suit of armor and Ed can feel every bit of the hot tears pricking at his eyes.  </p><p>Ed lets out a little involuntary sigh of pain. “Sorry,” he knows how defeated he sounds, “You’re right. It’s my fault that it happened. But... I’ll make it right. I’ll get you back into your real body, you’ll see, Al.” It’s a hollow promise, they both know that. Ed will never, ever, give up trying, but Al is right. For all his cosmic power, he’s useless. Truth could unravel him in an instant. “Believe me, Al. I’ll do it.”  </p><p>“Believe you?” Al slams a hand to his chest. “How am I supposed to believe you when I’m stuck in this body?” He clenches his other fist. “You get a human body and you get to feel the sun inside you and do you know what I get? Nothing. I don’t get prayers, I don’t get warmth, and I don’t even get dreams. Nothing is real for me!”  </p><p>“You... can’t feel the sun inside you?” It’s the wrong thing to say, Ed knows it, but he can’t imagine life without the searing holiness of the white fire running through his veins.  </p><p>“No!” Al shouts. “All I get are memories! I know what I should be feeling and I don’t get any of it! When I let it out, it covers this armor and I don’t feel a single thing.”  </p><p>“Oh.” Ed’s word is one of defeat. He’d known that Al couldn’t have human things, but he’d at least thought... how could he do it, otherwise? Before they were named and before they were real, they had flitted around the place beyond Truth together. It had been empty and endless, but the light and warmth of the prayers they were sent gave them some respite. For Al to live without anything of the sort... Ed can’t imagine how horrible it must be.  </p><p>It should have been him.   </p><p>Ed gets up and walks out. He needs to be outside, somewhere the wind and the sun can calm him down. And how fucked up is that— that to deal with his brother being isolated and empty, he has to go experience what Al can’t?  </p><p>He’ll deal with Hughes’ questions later. The man will have some, but he’s not familiar enough with alchemists to figure out that the sun that Al was talking about was literal. He won’t learn anything too incriminating.  </p><p>The wind is blowing when he gets to the roof, rushing through his hair. He breathes deeply, trying to fill his lungs with it. Oxygen for the brain and sunlight for the soul.  </p><p>He hears Al come up and he can’t bear to hear whatever apology will come out. Even if Al doesn’t blame him, he’s at fault. He’s been spoiled by Al not blaming him already; he’s not about to let himself off the hook.  </p><p>“Y’know, Al,” he says, “it’s been a while since we’ve had a good fight. I’m starting to get flabby.”  </p><p>Ed throws punch after punch; Al blocks the first and avoids the others. Ed hadn’t meant what he’d said about getting flabby, but he might have been right. Just to prove to himself that he can, he does a back handspring.  </p><p>“Your wounds haven’t healed enough for this!”  </p><p>And yeah, that’s the damn truth. Ed can feel his side groaning in pain, but he doesn’t care. This is infinitely preferable to talking. He grabs a sheet, throws it up in the air so Al can’t see him, and tackles his brother. And for the first time, Al goes down.  </p><p>“I beat you,” Ed says. “That’s the first time in five hundred years.”  </p><p>Al complains, but a win is a win and they both know it.  </p><p>“I can’t promise you your body back,” Ed says, “you’re right. I’ve been lying to myself, because it’s my fault and I can’t deal with it unless I pretend that you’ll be okay.”  </p><p>“I don’t blame you,” Al says, “and you shouldn’t blame yourself. It was my choice too, you know.”  </p><p>Ed huffs, but Al shuts him up with a look. “We’re in this together, right?”  </p><p>“Yes,” Ed says, “Of course.”  </p><p>“So stop trying to take responsibility for everything.”  </p><p>Ed sighs, but nods in agreement.  </p><p>“Together?” Al offers.  </p><p>“Always.”  </p><p>  </p><p>Ed and Al had found the half-destroyed array at the center of the ruins of Xerxes. They knew what it did. How could they not, when they had heard about the King’s quest for immortality and felt their souls ripped from their bodies as payment for Hohenheim’s mistake?  </p><p>The portal had rejected them. They were human, yes, but also something more, and that something more had become to entrenched for the portal to take them. But it had taken their bodies, and they had wandered nameless on the winds, waiting for another of untainted Xerxian blood to be born.  </p><p>“Do you think dad knew?” Al had asked, “When we were born, do you think he knew what we were?”  </p><p>“Does it matter?” Ed had replied.  </p><p>  </p><p>Winry is all that’s right with the world. She is kind and loving and whip-smart. When she was eleven, she saw two gods in the bodies of children and two children with the powers of gods and she decided that they needed someone to take care of them. And she was right.  </p><p>Winry decides again, and again, and again. She will always take care of people, not because she’s a Rockbell and an automail mechanic, but because she’s Winry, and Winry always makes the choice to help.  </p><p>There is life in the world that there wouldn’t have been because of Winry. Winry is fifteen and she almost single-handedly delivers a baby, and Ed and Al are reminded once again why they made the jump to earth. It was for this: for warm hands and warm smiles and life that is born from life.  </p><p>  </p><p>Many thousands of years ago, or perhaps only a few centuries, or a few weeks, for the dreams of men do not cease once they have died, and time is really only what you make of it, they had felt the call of those who would become the Xerxians— felt their thirst for life, for knowledge, for understanding. That ancient people— the ones who had golden hair and golden eyes— they had needed understanding like they had needed water. Ed and Al (though they had been nameless, then) had not known what it meant to need something yet, but they had <em> wanted </em>.  </p><p>They had tossed themselves from beyond the void and found human bodies to settle in, and the bodies had accepted them and they were no longer nameless, and they finally could feel the dreams of men and shape them as their own. And it had been enough, finally. And when they had died, their bodies had released them, had said “go, now, and take my life with you. find another to share it with”. And they had. And every few decades they would take a new name, and become a new person and it had been good.  </p><p>  </p><p>Greed is different. That really shouldn’t surprise them.  </p><p>It’s not just his attitude and hideout and friends, it’s the souls inside him. For the first time, Ed hears the souls of Xerxians that are not screaming in pain. They’re confused, scared, lost and alone, but they’re not in agony.   </p><p>Ed doesn’t know what the fuck is up with that, but it keeps him off his toes enough that Greed has the upper hand for a while. He wouldn’t have killed Greed anyways— he couldn’t have, not with the souls still inside him— but Teacher probably would have given him a long, hard, look that means he needs to think very carefully about where he’s going in life. As it is, she just saves his ass and calls him an idiot. He can work with that.  </p><p>He doesn’t stop Bradley when he comes in. He knows he’s going to go after Greed, knows that Bradley will probably kill him, but there’s no way he can beat a homunculus— not with a philosopher’s stone still inside him— so he lets him go.   </p><p>Al comes back shaken and Ed hates himself for letting that happen.   </p><p>“It’s okay, brother,” Al says. “I’ve seen death before.”  </p><p>Ed shakes his head. That’s not the point and they both know it.  </p><p>  </p><p>Winry was the first person to pray to him in five hundred years.  </p><p>That first week after the gate, she hadn’t left Ed and Al’s sides for longer than it took to fetch them food or a book. After a week, Granny had told her to go sleep in her own room. Ed and Al would be fine without her.  </p><p>So Winry went to her own room, pouting and fretting, and Ed fell into an uneasy sleep, dreaming of the space made of not-void and unlife.  </p><p>He stood there, silent and resigned, with limbs of fire, waiting for the dream to be over so he could return to the nightmare. It wasn’t dark, there. It wasn’t light either. It was nothing. <em>Is this how Al feels? </em>Ed had wondered,  <em> Cut off and empty? </em>  </p><p>Then, ever so slightly, a shining yellow thing, bright and confident and soft, landed on his outstretched arm.  </p><p>“I’m here,” it had promised in Winry’s voice. “I will always be there when you need me.”  </p><p>Ed had relaxed, letting the bright yellow soak into his very being, knowing that Winry was telling the truth.  </p><p>It should be embarrassing, really, because what sort of god relies on an eleven-year-old girl’s words of comfort? Then again, what sort of eleven-year-old boy is a god, and what sort of eleven-year-old girl is Winry Rockbell?  </p><p>  </p><p>Ling is the second person to figure it out. (Granny doesn’t count, and neither does teacher. They’d told the former and the latter had looked at them, figured out that they were something that they had always been, and told them that she didn’t give a damn if they turned out to be Ishvala herself.)  </p><p>He tells them their chi is weird (“Fuck you too, buddy,” Ed replies), and then he asks them how he can obtain immortality like theirs for himself.  </p><p>Ed snorts and tells him that that’s not how it works— that he’ll have to find another way to gain immortality. What they have isn’t up for grabs.  </p><p>Ling Yao follows them anyways.  </p><p>  </p><p>They know what’s happened to Hughes the second they find the Colonel in Central. He stares at them with guilty black eyes and Hawkeye does the same with pitying burnt umber ones and Ed and Al both know that there’s only one person who could have made them like this.  </p><p>“I’m sorry,” Ed says before the Colonel can lie to them (and he would; Ed knows he would like Ed knows that the Colonel hasn’t been sleeping. It’s written on his face and in his hands. He would mean it as a mercy, but it would be a pointed attack that means ‘You are not old enough for the truth’).  </p><p>“For what?” Mustang bluffs.  </p><p>Al sighs, because Ed’s eyes are narrowing in the way that means he’s going to try to punch the Colonel.  </p><p>Ed clenches his fist and presses his lips together and decides to spare Mustang just because he looks so lost. “For Hughes. I know he was your friend. I’m sorry.”  </p><p>“You... knew?” The Colonel asks.  </p><p>Ed nods tersely. Al sighs.  </p><p>“How?”  </p><p>Ed doesn’t look at him— doesn't look at the wonder and horror in his eyes that mean that Mustang is scared that the Elrics can see into his soul.   </p><p>“Phone call,” Ed lies. “One of his subordinates called while we were in Dublith.”  </p><p>“Right,” Mustang breathes, though he doesn’t sound convinced. “Of course.”  </p><p>  </p><p>They had asked Hughes for help. He was a smart man, a kind man. He was the sort of man they could trust. They were right: he figured it out. He found the missing pieces that even millennia-old gods could not, and then he died.  </p><p>  </p><p>Ed knows that Mustang didn’t kill Maria Ross. The man is a murderer, sure, but Ed knows what someone looks like after they’ve killed. He’s furious and scared, but he has no blood on his hands. Ed can’t say anything, though— can’t reveal that he knows Mustang is faking— because then the gambit would be up. So, he pretends to be angry, pretends to hate the Colonel, and all the while he’s praying to some imaginary, far more competent, god that Mustang knows what he’s doing.  </p><p>He knows Mustang must be planning something. That’s the only reason he would kick Ed out and let Al stay. (Mustang has always been good about that— letting them stay together. It would be heartening if it weren’t heart-rending. The only reason someone as practical as him would let Ed and Al cling to each other is because he can tell that they would fall apart otherwise.)  </p><p>So, he goes east with Alex at Mustang’s command— or at least he starts to. Ten minutes in, he tells Alex that he needs to go to the bathroom. Then he jumps out the window of the moving train and lets the divinity escape his tight hold for just a second, just enough for it to start dissolving his body so that when the dirt meets his skin, it meets unbreakable fire. He doesn’t trust Mustang to be able to win against them— doesn’t know if Al can beat them. He needs to be there.  </p><p>  </p><p>The night after Ross escaped, Ed dreamed of the space beyond void. He had dreamed of it every night since the Gate, and he had dreamed of it every night he lived as a god before that. It had been full, then— full of desperate prayers and childish hopes and the half-spoken wishes of those who were too afraid to ask. Now it is empty.  </p><p>Something strange happened that night, though. Ed stood and stood and stood and the not-void slid all around him, but then, just as he was about to wake up, something brushed against his shoulder.  </p><p>It was warm and golden and utterly distraught. All it said was “Please, trust me,” and “I’m sorry.’  </p><p>When Ed woke, he couldn’t figure out who would pray to him— who would find their way into an empty far-away place they had no knowledge of just so that they could beg for his forgiveness.  </p><p>   </p><p>Havoc is almost dead when Ed finds him. Ed heals him as much as he can— stops the bleeding and does his best to re-bind the nerves and skin— but he doesn’t know much medical alchemy; he’s not Winry. Havoc will survive— he might even be able to move his legs a little— but unless he finds someone with the knowledge of healing and a power beyond that of a mortal, he won’t ever be able to walk again.  </p><p>Ed rushes through the healing. He can hear the Xerxians from the other end of the tunnel. He can hear Al from the other end. He prays he’s not too late.  </p><p>There is a trail of blood along the wall, a smear where Mustang has been holding on as he hobbled towards Al and Hawkeye, and Ed fears that Mustang is just going to go and get himself killed. Then he sees the Colonel, dark and glorious and <em>killing Ed’s people </em>and Ed nearly screams in rage.  </p><p>There is white fire in his palms and in his eyes as he steps out. Hawkeye and Al are behind the wall and Mustang is distracted, so Lust is the only one who sees him. In the half second when she’s regenerating before being burnt to a crisp, her eyes widen and a smirk grows on her face.  </p><p>Maybe she knows who— <em> what  </em>he is. Maybe she just thinks that he’s going to kill Mustang for her. Whichever it is, it makes Ed pause long enough to hear that the Xerxians inside her aren’t screaming any longer. They’re not happy, not at peace, but they are welcoming the whittling away of their souls as the earth welcomes rain after a drought. It is an end to their suffering, even if it is one that they would not have chosen otherwise.  </p><p>Ed stops, forces the sun inside him back down, and backs away. He can’t kill Lust, and he won’t hurt Mustang, so he leaves. Al will understand; it’s why he couldn’t kill Lust either.  </p><p>What a stupid rule of divinity: to love your ancient people so much that you cannot help your friends.   </p><p>   </p><p>When Ed saw the Colonel for the first time, he was eleven, and Mustang had walked in and looked at him with horrified, calculating eyes, and Ed had thought, <em>You’re so young</em>.  </p><p>Ed hasn’t been a kid since the Gate. He has a hundred lifetimes in his head and the power of a god at his fingertips, and Mustang was only twenty-six when they met.  </p><p><em>You are young</em>, Ed had thought, looking at Mustang’s eyes and hands and knowing that the man had done awful, irredeemable things.  <em> You are young, and I am sorry. </em>  </p><p>  </p><p>Ed has to leave after that— pretend to be in Resembool, and then in Xerxes— so that the Colonel doesn’t wonder what he’s been up to, so that the Colonel doesn’t figure out any more. He already has enough secrets to keep, enough knowledge to hide.  </p><p>He meets Hohenheim on the way back, and feeling all the souls swirling inside his father is the least upsetting part of that encounter. The souls are peaceful, at least. Self-possessed and calm, if not at rest. Ed will admit that his father managed to do the right thing with that.  </p><p>Ed walks up to him with glowing eyes. He wants his father to know what he is— to know that despite Hohenheim’s philosopher’s stone, Ed could smite him with cleansing white flame and erase him from the earth. Ed won’t— can’t. He can hear his people and for the first time they are people, not just nameless sorrow, but Hohenheim doesn’t know it and he’d rather let the old traitor think that Ed has the upper hand.  </p><p>“I will give you ten seconds to explain yourself,” he says, voice endless, polyphonic, overlaid with the hundreds of others who he had once been. “I will give you ten seconds to explain yourself, and you will speak, else I return to the dust that you came from.”  </p><p>Hohenheim stares at him, mouth open. Ed is glowing with fury, and not just metaphorically.  </p><p>“I’m sorry,” Hohenheim says, looking every bit his age. “I left to protect you. You deserved the chance to grow up as normal boys. You would have known what you were too soon if I were around.”  </p><p>‘Yeah?!’ Ed wants to shout. ‘Well you left and our mother died and we never got to be normal anyways, so what fucking good did it do— leaving us like that? What fucking good did it do?’  </p><p>Instead, Ed looks at Hohenheim, touches him on the forehead, and lets him see what Ed does: the gate forever in his mind.  </p><p>“I’m sorry,” Hohenheim says again, voice breaking.  </p><p>“You will never, ever, be sorry enough,” Ed says, but he presses back the sun in his eyes and his veins. “But that’s not my only question.”  </p><p>Hohenheim explains everything: the dwarf in the flask, the souls inside him, the circle that Amestris is becoming. Hohenheim explains, and Ed listens, the anger burrowing deeper with every word.  </p><p>“Why haven’t you stopped him already?” Ed asks once Hohenheim is finished. His voice shakes with anger. “Why did you let it happen? Why did you let Winry’s parents die?”   </p><p>Hohenheim doesn’t have an answer.  </p><p>“I thought so,” Ed says, resisting the temptation to take his power and burn a hole through the skull of the man in front of him over and over until he dies. “Tell me you at least know how to stop him.”  </p><p>Hohenheim doesn’t come up totally short for that, but it’s not as much as Ed would have liked. Returning the souls of the Amestrians isn’t enough. His people will still be trapped, and he needs to save them.   </p><p>“You won’t be able to,” Hohenheim says as Ed gets up. “Trust me, I know. The only way they can rest is through death.”  </p><p>Ed turns back around, veins glowing with white fire. “I will never turn my back on my people. I will never hurt them.”  </p><p>Hohenheim closes his eyes, sinks down to the ground, and sighs. Ed doesn’t look back.  </p><p>  </p><p>That night, as he stands in the void, another prayer comes to him. This one is cold and silver and wrought with emptiness.  </p><p>“I do not deserve your forgiveness, Edward,” it says in a voice that belongs to his father, “but know that I love you, and I loved your mother. In the end, I am human, and I have made far more and far bitterer mistakes than most.”  </p><p>Ed wakes up scowling, but the freezing emptiness of the prayer holds itself in his chest. His father has hundreds of thousands of people with him and is still lonelier than anyone should be. Ed’s anger does not melt, but part of it gives way to pity. His father is a child compared to Ed. Children make mistakes.   </p><p>But Ed was a child too. He was a little kid and he needed his parents and Hohenheim was the reason he had ended up without any. No amount of humanity will ever excuse that.   </p><p>  </p><p>He heads back to Central. They still need more information. He knows what the homunculi and the Dwarf in the Flask are doing, now, but that doesn’t mean he knows how to stop them.   </p><p>Besides, he’s tired of running and hiding. The furthest any of them have ever gotten was when Mustang went on the attack. Granted, it hadn’t gone perfectly, but Ed and Al are stronger than humans. They can do this.  </p><p>But they are not the only people involved, and the others are perfectly human.  </p><p>Ed wants to kick himself for letting Winry hear. And then he wants to kick himself for not telling her in the first place. She had a right to know.  </p><p>Winry raises the gun, finger clutching at the trigger, and Scar steps forward. Ed throws himself in between them.  </p><p>“Don’t touch her.” His voice is as old as mankind and as young as the fifteen-year-old he should be, and the sun is leaking through the confines of his mortal body.  </p><p> “What in the name of Ishvala <em>are</em> you?” Scar breathes.  </p><p>“I am Edward Elric,” Ed says, because that is the only truth that matters, “and you will not hurt my friend.”  </p><p>“Brother...” Al warns, but he doesn’t need to. Ed has himself in check. If nothing else, he will not hurt Winry.  </p><p>“I’ve got her,” Ed says. “Handle him. We’re on borrowed time.”  </p><p>Al nods, and then he is chasing Scar.  </p><p>“Winry,” Ed says, kneeling next to her. “Winry?”  </p><p>She’s shaking and crying and she won’t let go of the gun. “I couldn’t do it. He killed my parents and I couldn’t do it.”  </p><p>“Winry,” Ed repeats, taking her face in his hands and turning it gently so that she sees him. There is still fire in his eyes and his veins. “I’m here.”  </p><p>“Ed, tell me: how— why— what’s the point?” She shudders under the weight of what she hadn't done. “You’re a god, right? So tell me: why should we bother living and dying?”  </p><p>Ed smiles sadly, heart breaking. “Because it’s better than the alternative.” He pauses, imagining the empty void he stands in night after night. “Your hands are warm and you are alive. You’re too human, Winry. You were meant to nurture life. Please, don’t hate yourself for not killing him.”  </p><p>“He deserved it,” she says, though she doesn’t sound sure.   </p><p>Ed looks at her with eyes that burn like suns and reaches down, peeling her fingers off the gun one by one. “Maybe,” Ed says, “but he’s still human, isn’t he? He’s made of the same things you are, in the end. I think that matters.”  </p><p>The gun clatters to the ground, and Winry collapses in his arms, sobbing. He strokes her hair, lets her feel the warmth of his hand, and forces the divinity back down. What Winry needs now is another human, not a god.   </p><p>“You are good, Winry,” Ed whispers into her hair. “You are what the world needs.”  </p><p>  </p><p>The plan goes perfectly, except where it doesn’t. <em>It’s alright,</em> Ed thinks, <em>we can improvise</em>. And they do. They catch Gluttony, Hawkeye grabs him, and they run. And then, because very little ever goes his way, everything falls apart again.</p><p>When Mustang pulls on his gloves, Ed expects to feel angry— to be filled with righteous fury— because this is the man who killed his people. Instead he just looks at the way Mustang stands in front of everyone, confident and cocksure and determined to protect everyone. Ed sees that the first few buttons on Mustang’s shirt are undone, and that his dark hair is tousled in a way that wouldn’t look effortless on anyone else, and the way his eyes shine, dark and intelligent and utterly focused.   </p><p>And then he thinks, <em>fuck</em>, because this is really not the time to be getting a crush, least of all on <em>fucking </em>Mustang.   </p><p>The world seems to agree with him, because then everything immediately goes to shit.  </p><p>  </p><p>When they’re in Gluttony’s stomach, Ed dreams again. He’s not asleep, just trudging through the endless red muck, but wherever they are, they must be in between their reality and the void of Truth, so it’s that much easier to slip into the place beyond the void and drift in the nothingness.  </p><p>It is a small prayer that comes to him, light and fluttering and blue and it settles in the flesh of his left palm, whispering “Please be okay, brother. Please, come back.”  </p><p>Ed tries to send Al a message back— prays as hard as he can. He thinks about Al and his voice and the way he always picks up stray animals and he thinks about more than that; he thinks about Al’s essence when they were still just a collection of hopes and desires and he reaches out and says, “I’m okay. I will find you.” He hopes against hope that it gets through.  </p><p>They have been walking for who knows how much longer when he feels another prayer brush his arm. He reaches out, grabbing at it desperately in the hopes that it’s Al who got his message. It’s not.   </p><p>It’s the same golden one as the first time, still warm and utterly distraught. “Be okay,” it pleads with him, settling just behind his sternum. “I can’t let another person die because I was too weak to do anything about it.”  </p><p>There’s something all-too-familiar about the voice, but Ed still can’t place it, and he can’t figure out who besides Al, Winry, and Hohenheim might know how to contact him here.  </p><p>  </p><p>“You weren’t surprised,” Ling says in one of their brief moments of rest, “when I said that your Führer is a homunculus.”  </p><p>Ed grimaces. “I can hear the souls inside them.” He pauses, eyes cast down. “I’m sorry about what happened to Lan Fan. I feel like if I had told you...”  </p><p>Ling waves away Ed’s apology. “It wouldn’t have helped anyways. We knew the second he got there what he was. But,” he says, gaze slyly sliding to Ed, “what I want to know is why your Colonel didn’t know.”  </p><p>Ed frowns and very determinedly ignores the fact that Ling referred to Mustang as ‘his.’  </p><p>“You haven’t told him,” Ling says with an air of disbelief, “Not even after he killed one of them?”  </p><p>Ed glares angrily at the ground. “Well, yeah, it seems a bit belated for that. ‘Hey bastard, just thought you should know that me and my brother are old gods of Xerxes and we’ve known that the Führer was a homunculus for years now. Alright, now that that’s sorted out, we can go eat lunch.”  </p><p>“You eat lunch with him.” Ling’s tone is flat.  </p><p>Ed huffs, jamming his hands into his pockets. “Figure of speech.”  </p><p>And then Ling starts laughing at him.  </p><p>Ed gives him a confused look. Ling, of course, doesn’t bother to explain.  </p><p>  </p><p>They make it out.  </p><p>They make it out, and they lose Ling and gain the tiny Xingese girl and Ed really wants to punch the first person who said that the world functions on principles of equivalent exchange because clearly that person had never understood that there’s no such thing as balance in life, only losses and gains that cannot make up for each other.  </p><p>Envy sees his dick (which Ed could, quite frankly, really have done without) and practically shoves them into the Führer’s office.    </p><p>They walk in, and Ed sees Mustang, straight backed and terrified and he wants to burn Envy and Wrath to a crisp, wants to let them feel his holy fire and watch as the philosopher’s stones are ripped from their bodies.   </p><p>But Ed could never do it. He could never destroy his people, no matter how much he wishes he could kill the things using them.   </p><p>So, he looks at the Colonel and presses his lips together and listens to Wrath promise to hold Winry hostage and he focuses every bit of his energy on not letting anyone see the sun running through his veins. He can’t give up the gambit this early.  </p><p>  </p><p>Hawkeye’s testimony isn’t one Ed realized he needed, but he feels... lighter walking away. He’s known for years about all the horrible things Mustang has done (not in detail, maybe, but Ed knows what flame can do and he knows that there is only one way Mustang’s eyes could have become so haunted), but the surety that the Colonel is actually clever and kind and self-sacrificing is a comfort.   </p><p>Not only is Mustang clever and brave and occasionally beautiful, Ed realizes, he’s <em>good </em>. That information shouldn’t set a strange, clawing thing at work in his chest, but it does, and Ed, for the first time in five hundred years, starts to realize how completely fucked he is. The bastard is breaking him down bit by bit, and Ed can’t do a damn thing about it.  </p><p>So when Mustang asks about his cens, Ed can’t muster up a clever reply.   </p><p>Ed makes a tactical decision, by which he means he says ‘fuck it, I trust you’ (though not in so many words), and he tells Mustang he can get his money back when he earns it. Then Ed tries very hard not to stare at the stretch of Mustang’s neck and his lips, bitten red in worry. It doesn’t work.  </p><p>“It’s 520 cens, Fullmetal,” Mustang remarks drily. “Even the minimum wage is higher than that.”  </p><p>Ed crosses his arms and stares at Mustang. “Yeah, well, you’re overpaid and underworked. Become the Führer— that should give you enough to do— and then we’ll talk about you getting your damn money back.”  </p><p>“Who told you?” Mustang’s tone drops, eyes narrowing with suspicion.  </p><p>Ed meets his gaze, already preparing to bluster and yell, but then he stops. He trusts the Colonel now; there’s no more need to pretend that he’s a little kid. For the first time, he drops the screen of impatience and childish arrogance and meets Mustang with honest eyes. “Lieutenant Hawkeye.”  </p><p>Mustang looks stunned, shocked by the subtle shift in Ed’s character— the straightened back, the calm set of his jaw, the even look in his eyes. Mustang is silent for a moment, then he swallows and it’s all Ed can do not to follow the curve of his throat with his eyes as he does. “And?”  </p><p>“And,” Ed says, quietly and without an ounce of sarcasm, “if anyone can do it, it’s you.”  </p><p>“I have to admit,” Mustang replies, trying to recapture some of his trademark dry humor, “I didn’t think you had that much faith in me.”  </p><p>Ed shrugs, forcing an aura of nonchalance. “You’re not <em>that </em>stupid when you get down to it, even though I think the dickish front is a bit much.”  </p><p>Mustang looks at him strangely, eyes skimming over Ed like he’s not sure if he’s real or if it’s an elaborate trick by the homunculi, and it’s all Ed can do to keep looking at him without flushing. Mustang’s eyes are dark and analytical and Ed can see him trying to strip him down to the barest essentials and it shouldn’t have any effect on him, but it does.   </p><p>If Mustang asked him with those eyes, Ed would reach inside himself and pull out the sun and give it into his hands. ‘<em>Here</em>,’ Ed would offer, ‘<em>this is me. It’s yours to have</em>.’  </p><p>But Mustang looks away and the strange roaring thing in Ed’s chest subsides a bit.  </p><p>“Encouraging words.” Mustang’s tone is dry, but he’s clearly been shaken.  </p><p>Ed shrugs, turning his head so that he can’t see him. The man looks almost fragile, and Ed doesn’t like the idea that he has that power. Mustang needs to be stronger than that if he wants to make it through what’s about to come.  </p><p>“It’s what I do.” The last vestiges of the sun wash over Ed, warming his face. It’s nice, for once, to have a sun warm him from the outside in instead of burn him from the inside out.  </p><p>Mustang gives him one more strange look as Ed gets out and stretches.  </p><p>“The fuck are you looking at?” Ed threatens, though it’s more conversational than anything else.  </p><p>Mustang doesn’t seem to pick up on it; he barely seems to be listening. “I— nothing.”  </p><p>“Right,” Ed gives the Colonel a strange look. “See you around, bastard.”  </p><p>“See you around, Fullmetal.”  </p><p>Ed watches him drive off and pretends that the heat in his cheeks is just from the last rays of the sun.  </p><p>  </p><p>That night, as Ed wanders the not-void, a third of the golden prayers comes to him.  </p><p>He takes it and holds it in his hands, expecting it to feel warm and distraught. Instead, it ghosts across his skin like it’s afraid to touch him.  </p><p>“I’m in love with you,” it says, “and I’m sorry.”  </p><p>Ed wakes up with the golden prayer lodged in every cell of his body. He still doesn’t know who sent it, but it feels right to keep it— to store it where no one else can touch it. It was meant for him.  </p><p>  </p><p>“So,” Al says in the quiet tone that portends endless trouble for Ed, “are we ever going to talk about your crush on the Colonel?”  </p><p>They’re on the train north. They may be able to fight against the Dwarf in the Flask without alchemy (though whether they’ll be able to carry through once they hear the screaming inside him is a different thing), but they still need to get their bodies back. Alkahestry seems like their best shot.  </p><p>Ed looks at Al, then looks down at his hands, and decides that discretion is the better part of valor. “My what?”  </p><p>Al gives him a <em>look</em>. How that’s possible for him for him to do without a real face, Ed will never know, but he manages it unsettlingly well. “I was in that car too, brother, not that you seemed to notice it.”  </p><p>Ed flushes. “It’s just a stupid crush. This body is fifteen. Cut me some slack.”  </p><p>Al huffs. “You’re lying. I know what you’re like when you have a crush.”  </p><p>“My last crush was over five hundred years ago. Things change, Al.”  </p><p>“Not enough.” He sighs. “Come on, can we at least talk about it?”  </p><p>“Fine.” Ed frowns, knowing that Al isn’t going to give it up.  </p><p>“What are you planning to do?”  </p><p>“Do?” Ed is confused. “I’m not planning to do anything. He’s not interested. He thinks I’m a brat.”  </p><p>Al sighs again. “No, he doesn’t.”  </p><p>Ed looks pointedly at Al.  </p><p>“Okay, well sometimes— most of the time— he does, but in that car... Ed, he looked at you like he was seeing the sun for the first time.”  </p><p>Ed snorts. “Real creative, Al.”  </p><p>“You’re deflecting.”  </p><p>“I’m not the sort of person he’s interested in, okay?” Ed sounds more bitter than he’d like. “He likes beautiful women. People who fall at his feet. And I’m sixteen.”  </p><p>“I don’t think he’s that shallow,” Al says. “And you’re not sixteen— not in any way that matters.”  </p><p>Ed shrugs, shoulders tight. “Maybe not. But he’s still not interested in <em>me</em>.”  </p><p>  </p><p>Ed goes back to the place beyond Truth that night, as he does every night. He stands and waits for another prayer, not really expecting it, just hoping.  </p><p>He still hasn’t told Al about the three golden ones; he doesn’t quite know what to make of them. Al would have his own opinions and theories and Ed isn’t really ready to hear what Al thinks of someone he doesn’t even know the name of telling him they love him.  </p><p>So Ed waits in the not-void hoping and hoping and fearing another prayer, hoping for and fearing an explanation. After all, Edward Elric is not the sort of person someone would be happy to fall in love with. He pities the person who has.  </p><p>In the end, the void stays quiet. Ed isn’t sure whether to be relieved or disappointed when he wakes up.  </p><p>  </p><p>Sloth is terrifying, but not as terrifying as Major General Armstrong. She takes everything he says in stride, manipulates Raven, and then kills him. She is strong and cold and beautiful and every bit the fortress of ice that she is rumored to be.   </p><p>Kimblee is terrifying for a different reason.  </p><p>Ed looks at Kimblee and sees everything Mustang could have become and he breathes a sigh of relief that Hawkeye has such good judgement. Kimblee is vicious and cruel and delights in pain, and Ed will do anything to protect Winry from him.  </p><p>The ruse works. Scar holds up his end of the bargain and Winry disappears with him and it’s all Ed can do to keep himself from running after them. Then Al goes, and Ed is breaking at the seams of his being. Every time he turns, a flash of light escapes his eyes and his veins, and he doesn’t know what Major Miles and the others think of it but he’s sure they’ve noticed.  </p><p>He gets impaled, and it’s almost a relief to be able to let out his power, even if it’s to heal himself. He’s never done it before, but he doesn’t have any other option. It’s painful— he can feel himself slipping away as he does it— but it works. The wound scabs enough to keep him alive and the chimeras save him and that is the last thing he remembers for a while.  </p><p>  </p><p>The months following Greed are odd, to say the least.  </p><p>Mostly, it’s just traveling and low-level robberies. (Ed refuses to rob anyone that doesn’t look like they bathed in money that morning. Greed had argued with him until he’d gotten that look on his face that meant Ling was arguing with him too. Eventually, he’d given in, complaining that only rich people had enough money worth stealing.)  </p><p>Darius and Heinkel are pretty dull company, so he goes out with Greeling most nights and watches as Greed invariably tries to get laid. It works about 50% of the time, and the other 50% leaves Ed in stitches and Greed sulky enough to let Ling out to play.  </p><p>One of the nights that Greed gets (spectacularly, amazingly) rejected, Ling comes out, and he and Ed sit on a roof and share stories about all the shit they got up to when they were kids. Ed likes Ling. Sure, the guy is a dick who can eat his way through a room service menu in one sitting, but Ed is an asshole who has done that once or twice too. They’re of the same mettle, in some strange way, and Ling recognizes it. Maybe that’s why he invites Ed to Xing after the whole end-of-the-world thing blows over.  </p><p>“You think we’re gonna make it out?” Ed asks, curious.  </p><p>Ling narrows his eyes, and when he speaks, Greed’s voice is mixed with his. “I refuse to let anyone else die.”  </p><p>Ed kisses him. There’s still a pit of something too deep and powerful to touch that surfaces when he thinks about Mustang, but god knows when he’ll see the man again. (Actually, he corrects hysterically, god <em>doesn’t </em>know. That’s the problem.) Ling is attractive and a good friend and Ed’s body is raging with hormones, so they fuck in the woods. It’s not quite as awkward as a first time usually is because Ed has thousands of years of experience, even if his body doesn’t remember it, and judging by the occasional annoyed look on Ling’s face, Greed is helping him with the play-by-play. After it’s over, he and Ed look at each other and burst out laughing for no reason, and they fall asleep in each other’s arms.  </p><p>The next time they go out drinking, Ed fucks Greed and that’s less nice, but it does border on mind-blowing. And... it’s good. It gives both of them a distraction when the future starts to look a little too dark and their friends feel far away and it gives them a reason to sleep next to another person. It also makes Darius and Heinkel super uncomfortable, which is an unforeseen, if incredible, bonus.  </p><p>Ed has been focused on getting his and Al’s bodies back for so long that he’s forgotten what being human feels like most of the time: waiting, with an end far away but in sight, and with people that you start to care about just because they’re people and they’re there. It’s not a bad deal.  </p><p>  </p><p>Ed decks his father, and it’s the most satisfying punch he’s ever thrown in his life.  </p><p>In return, his father gives him the array to destroy philosophers' stones without killing the souls inside, and Ed smirks. That’s another mark on the list of the many things that Hohenheim has been wrong about.  </p><p>The man ends up being helpful with Pride, though, so Ed will give him that much. Of course, Al was more helpful, but Al isn’t a useless dick who would walk out on his kids and wife and let their lives be ruined because of it.   </p><p>Al, however, <i>is</i> a stubborn idiot. Which Ed tells him. At length.  </p><p>Al calls<em> him </em>a stubborn idiot back, and then makes him head out.  </p><p>He hates leaving Al, but it’s the only option.  </p><p>  </p><p>For once, he can’t hear the philosopher’s stones. He doesn’t know if it’s because they’re not from Xerxes, or because their souls are so torn apart that they really are mindless energy, but he’s not going to complain. The immortal soldiers are hard enough to kill, he doesn’t need the souls weighing him down. This is hard enough.  </p><p>Too hard. He’s familiar with the undying, but these <em>things </em>are immortal in the worst way. The homunculi are dangerous and terrifying, but the homunculi, at least, are a little human. These things are a vast hunger and endless desire for warmth in the shape of monsters in the shape of humans.   </p><p>And then Mustang is there, beautiful and confident and an asshole.  </p><p>“Things always get rowdy where you are,” Mustang says, “Maybe I could lend you a hand, Fullmetal.” He smirks. “You just manage to make new friends everywhere you go.”   </p><p>Ed is seized by the urge to punch, yell at, and kiss the bastard, if not all at once, then in a very short sequence. Then another mannequin soldier lunges at him and he gets too busy to think about all the things that he wants to do to Mustang’s face. In the back of his head, it registers that the man keeps making dry comments instead of helping. If he doesn’t stop soon, Ed thinks absentmindedly, it’s going to go from infuriating in a kind of hot way to infuriating in a ‘what the fuck we’re fighting for our lives here’ way.  </p><p>He’s not the only person with that opinion, apparently, (well, he’s probably the only person who thinks the bastard is hot, but that’s beside the point), because everyone starts yelling at him to shut up and help. And thank fuck he listens, because they’re saved the second that he does.  </p><p>Ed watches as every single immortal soldier is burnt to a crisp. The flame is something beautiful and terrible, spreading throughout the room in elegant curls and swirls. Ed has never held with the people who talk about alchemy like it’s an art, but watching Mustang wield something so lethal with so much beauty might make him reconsider his stance.  </p><p>It’s horrifying— at least it should be— but Ed feels the mess of <em>something </em>in his chest roar as he thinks that Mustang should have been a god too. No human should be able to hold that much power in the palm of their hand; no human should be able to use it with so much deadly grace.   </p><p>Mustang could destroy the world with a snap of his fingers. Ed knows the feeling.  </p><p>The immortal soldiers are gone, the way is clear, and they have the Flame Alchemist and the Hawk’s Eyes on their side. Ed feels, well, not confident, because he’s not an idiot, but he feels like they might have a fighting chance.  </p><p>Of course, that’s when everything goes to shit.  </p><p>Mei crashes through the ceiling with Envy, Envy starts talking, and Ed watches Mustang collapse in on himself until the man that was standing there is a black hole of rage. Ed doesn’t want to leave him like this, but he doesn’t know what he could do to help. So he leaves.  </p><p>  </p><p>But the swirling pit of emotion in his stomach leeches into worry. Mustang’s face flashes through his head over and over— not Mustang’s face— he can’t have— not even in Ishval. But it <em>was </em>Mustang’s face, because it was Mustang who was doing it— who was threatening to burn out Envy’s tongue for his own enjoyment, and Ed thinks of Kimblee and thinks of Mustang and then he thinks of Scar and he decides, <em>No. Not him. </em>  </p><p>Scar comes with him. Good. Here is a man of god turned mourner turned vengeful murderer. Here is the man Ed hopes Mustang will never have to become. Mustang has enough crimes to atone for; Ed won’t— can’t— let all the work he’s done been in vain. He will not let Mustang fall.  </p><p>He finds them, finds Envy stripped of all their power and Mustang standing over them, about to torture them to death, and Ed doesn’t even have to think about taking Envy away from him.  </p><p>Riza holds a gun to the Colonel’s head, and indecision clouds Mustang’s face. The hate is there too, along with the pain, the grief, the desperate wish that justice will bring peace, but underneath that, Mustang knows that that’s not how it works. He knows that justice is not closure— that killing someone will not make the person they killed come back. He knows this because he’s killed, and he’s still there. If Mustang’s death had meant even a single one of the people he’d slaughtered would come back to life, Ed knows he would have done it in an instant.  </p><p>Riza’s hand shakes as she threatens to kill the Colonel, and then threatens to kill herself. Her hand shakes, but her grip is constant, and she is certain in her path.  </p><p><em>Brave</em>, Ed thinks in awe, <em>and wonderful. </em>This is why he came down. This is what he wanted to understand: love, and duty, and sacrifice, and all the things that make life terrible and bearable.   </p><p>Ed looks between them: the man with all the power of alchemy at his fingertips, and the woman with a single pistol. But it is the woman who stands tall and squares her shoulders, the woman who has decided that she doesn’t get the luxury of selfishness.  </p><p>Ed was wrong. Mustang was never supposed to be a god; if he had been, the world might have been reduced to ash. He’s beautiful and powerful, but he is too fragile for the sort of power he wields. Hawkeye, though? If she had been a god, Ed might have finally found an altar to pray at. She is something he could believe in. Not duty before love, or love before duty, but one and the same. She loves the world and she loves the Colonel and she will not allow either of them to destroy themselves, not while she can do something about it.   </p><p>The Colonel screams, and snaps, and fire goes racing down the empty tunnel, and then he’s crumpling in on himself and the black hole is gone and he’s back to Roy Mustang, broken and bleeding, but stubborn and full of love.  </p><p>“Please forgive me,” he says, collapsing to the floor and Ed knows what he means is ‘I love you’ and ‘Thank you’ and ‘I promise never again’.  </p><p>Ed thinks,<em> Oh, I understand why Hawkeye loves you. </em>  And then he thinks, <em>I might I might love you too. </em>  </p><p>Then he looks down and sees Envy, pathetic and jealous as he watches them, and something stirs in Ed.   </p><p>“I know how you feel,” Ed says out loud, because at this point it doesn’t really matter if the others hear him, “I wanted this too. It’s a pity you never let yourself get it.”  </p><p>Envy turns to glare at him, but then they see Ed’s face. Envy freezes and turns away.   </p><p>Ed doesn’t shake his head, but he does pick Envy up again, and makes Envy face him. “I’m sorry,” he says to Envy simply, “I can help you rest.”  </p><p>Envy looks at him, tiny and cruel and scared, and then nods. Ed can send them home.  </p><p>He closes his eyes, lets the white fire out in to his palms and swirl around Envy, not cool, perhaps, but not necessarily not healing. Envy lets themself be burned up— properly, this time— without any of the revenge or hate, just clean fire.  </p><p>Then Envy is gone and he looks up.  </p><p>Scar looks at him with the same fear and awe as the first time. Hawkeye looks at him with reassurance and a sort of quiet knowledge. But it is Mustang who looks at him with his tired, dark, eyes, and it is Mustang’s eyes who bloom in understanding.  </p><p>“Fullmetal,” he breathes, and Ed has never wanted to kiss him more.  </p><p>“We need to go,” Ed says, because even though Mustang and Hawkeye shouldn’t have to move again for a year— should be able to finally rest— they have an apocalypse to stop.  </p><p>So he turns around and tries very hard not to think about the face Mustang had had when he’d figured out what Ed is. There was no fear in his eyes, no hint of machinations or possessive desire, just wonder and pure unadulterated love.  </p><p>  </p><p>Ed tries to fight the Dwarf in the Flask. He knows Mustang and Scar are up above him and he knows that Mustang could be the final sacrifice and he can’t allow that to happen.   </p><p>But it doesn’t work. The Dwarf in the Flask counters all their alchemy, hurts Mei, and then it’s him, Teacher, and Al standing together, trying to face the monster before them, and Ed and Al don’t have the chance to bring out their power before Mustang joins them.  </p><p>Mustang appears and Ed is so, so relieved to see that he’s unharmed, and then he’s worried because the gate must have taken <em>something </em> and what if it was something like Izumi’s but worse— organs he cannot live without. But no, he’s fine, if dazed and scared, and Ed is checking him over, and then he says the few words that terrify Ed.  </p><p>“I don’t know how you can expect to see in this darkness, Fullmetal.”  </p><p>Ed flinches, and then wants to go yell at Truth to give Mustang’s sight back. He isn’t like Ed. He didn’t do this to himself. What kind of Truth takes the eyes of a man who didn’t even commit a sin? But Truth’s equivalent exchange is not the equivalent exchange of humankind, and it never has been, and Ed knows there’s nothing he can do.  </p><p>Then the portal is opening and he has more to worry about.  </p><p>Hohenheim’s circle works— <em>Ed’s people </em> work— and he has never been prouder to be of them and for them. They are wonderful and brave and so human down to their cores that even centuries have not been able to take that away from them. He loves them for it, and he will mourn their passing.  </p><p>The Dwarf in the Flask loses the new philosopher’s stone, but he still has the power of Truth on his side— he can still fight.  </p><p>So he stops their alchemy.  </p><p>Ed smirks, because finally, finally, his patience has paid off and his enemies are missing out on a crucial piece of information: Edward Elric isn’t and has never been just an alchemist. Edward Elric is an old god— older than the homunculus, older than Hohenheim, and older than the ancient civilization that had sired them both. Alchemy is not the only thing he has control over.  </p><p>Finally, for the first time in five hundred years, Ed lets out the sun.  </p><p>White fire swirls from his veins and across his skin until he is burning and not burning and he could cleanse the world if he wished— start it over with cleansing flame and make sure they get it right this time. But Ed likes this world and the people in it and it’s a stupid god that thinks that they can control mankind.   </p><p>Next to him, Al does the same, and his armor melts away until the blood seal is at the core of his body made of flames. There’s no going back now.  </p><p>Ed and Al walk forward together and the Dwarf in the Flask fears them.  </p><p>“You are a myth,” he says, “a legend.”  </p><p>Ed and Al look at each other, because the homunculus before them is a myth as well. None of them should be able to exist, but they do, and it’s not because of any transmutation circles or human sacrifices, it’s because some stupid, stubborn, wonderful, humans had the gall to fight for more. The Dwarf in the Flask has forgotten this— forgotten that, while he may not have been begotten by humans, he was born of their blood and is tied to them inextricably. This will be his downfall. Humans don’t need gods, it’s the other way around.  </p><p>So they fight.  </p><p>But even without the Philosopher’s stone of the Amestrians, he has the Xerxians and the power of Truth on his side. Ed and Al were gods of knowledge, of light, not of warfare. They fight because they have to, not because they were made for it.  </p><p>They fight, but they’re losing, and then Al looks over at him and Ed can see what he’s about to do. He doesn’t stop him. Al is his brother— that which he loves most in the world— but he thinks of Hawkeye, and knows that sometimes you have to let the people you love make their own choices, or else they wouldn’t be the people you love. You have to give them the same options you’d give yourself.  </p><p>So he looks at Al and promises in more than words that he’ll get Al back, and Al nods, and is gone.   </p><p>The power rushes into him, twice what he had before, and it’s invigorating and terrifying. Now, the flames are not so much swirling across his skin as they are his skin. He is white fire, divinity incarnate, and he will <em>not  </em>let his brother’s sacrifice go to waste.  </p><p>Ed takes everything he has, and then, he walks through the homunculus’ barrier, and it parts before him like the sea. The dwarf in the flask cannot steal what was never his— was never anyone’s.   </p><p>The homunculus’ skin is empty and formless under his palm, like the marred shadows he was made from. Ed has never felt the first homunculus before— never seen his true form. He doesn’t need to. He can hear the thousands of souls crying out to him, telling Ed who and what the homunculus is.  </p><p>He presses in with the heel of his hand, and the souls leave the homunculus’s body. What’s left is a shriveled, dry, husk that folds itself up until it’s only shadows again.  </p><p>Ed takes a deep breath, and lets the white fire spread from his hand onto the being before. This is what Al sacrificed himself for. This is the end of his divinity.  </p><p>The dwarf burns to dust.  </p><p>Al is gone, and for a second that shakes him to his core, but Ed isn’t just a god, after all, he’s also a godamned genius, and he knows how to get his brother back. It won’t be perfect; he can’t give him back his divinity— Ed has only the smallest scrap left, and he knows Al won’t begrudge him it— but he can get his brother back.  </p><p>He carves the circle on the stone, holding up a hand when Hohenheim tries to interrupt him.   </p><p>“Well,” he says, stepping back once he’s finished. “Enjoy the show, it’ll be your last from me.” And he steps into the circle.  </p><p>It was a bit of a dick move to not tell them what he’s doing. He can hear their worried voices screaming his name, but it won’t matter in a bit. After all, there’s no way he’s not coming back.  </p><p>“Hello,” Truth says with its many voices. “What have you come to trade this time? Your other leg?”  </p><p>Ed smirks. “It took me so long to figure it out, you know.”  </p><p>Truth cocks its head. “Figure what out?” It doesn’t need the explanation. Truth knows all— that’s kind of the point.  </p><p>Ed doesn’t say anything back, just offers his gate.  </p><p>“And what about your Colonel?” Truth asks.  </p><p>Ed smirks again. “I think there’s more than enough in my gate to allow me the power to heal him.”  </p><p>Truth’s grin grows hungry and wide. “Well done!”  </p><p>“Took me long enough.” Ed shrugs. “Guess we won’t be seeing each other again for a while.”  </p><p>“I’ll miss our little chats,” Truth says. “But I can wait.”  </p><p>Ed snorts. “Shall we?”  </p><p>Truth nods, and Ed shakes its hand. The world goes to void.  </p><p>  </p><p>Ed wakes up in the room and rushes over to Al. Ed still has his automail, but he also has that last scrap of divinity and all his memories. If Truth had the capacity for kindness, he might have said that Truth was apologizing. But Truth doesn’t apologize, and not all sacrifices are made within the void.  </p><p>Al is weak, but alive. He’s bony and weak and shivering and smiling, and he can <em>shiver </em>and <em>smile </em>and Ed’s smiling and tearing up and he hugs his brother as gently as he can and Al laughs and it’s the most beautiful sound in the world.  </p><p>“That was clever, brother,” Al says.  </p><p>Ed shrugs. “I promised to get your body back, didn’t I?”  </p><p>But Al’s eyes flick down to his automail.  </p><p>Ed gives him a flat look. “I decided to keep the memories,” he says, “So don’t go giving me that look.”  </p><p>Al sighs. “You don’t suppose Truth would take my memories for your arm and leg, would it?”  </p><p>Ed freezes. “Don’t you dare.”  </p><p>Al sighs, and laughs. “Fine.”  </p><p>Ed shakes his head, and then Mei and Hohenheim are swamping Al and he steps back.  </p><p>When he turns around, he sees Mustang holding on to Izumi, grasping and helpless.   </p><p>Ed walks over, taking Mustang’s face in his hands. He only has the smallest bit of power left, but Truth agreed to the trade. It will be enough.  </p><p>“It’ll be alright,” he reassures, and he knows it will be. He wasn’t made for healing as much as he wasn’t made for fighting, but Mustang is one of his people, whether he likes it or not, and Ed will <em>always </em>help his people.   </p><p>Mustang looks up at him with empty, questioning eyes, and begins to opens his mouth to ask.  </p><p>“I promise,” Ed says, cutting off the Colonel’s question by capturing his lips in Ed’s own. He pours the last of his power through the kiss, flooding Mustang’s eyes with white fire.  </p><p>Mustang blinks once, twice, clouded eyes becoming clear. “Edward,” he gasps. “You shouldn’t have— not on me.”  </p><p>Edward smiles. “Don’t worry,” he says. “I didn’t have much use left for it anyways.” And that’s not really true, but he can’t think of a better way to spend the last of his divinity than on healing Roy Mustang.  </p><p>“You could have just touched him on the forehead,” Al says, extremely unhelpfully.  </p><p>Ed turns around to glare at him, but he’s so glad Al is smiling— that Al is able to<em> smile</em>— that the glare only lasts for five seconds.  </p><p>Mustang is still kneeling, staring up at him with his clever, wonderful, dark, eyes, and Ed feels a beautiful, golden, prayer whispering ‘Thank you’.  </p><p>“Oh,” he breathes, “it was <em>you</em>.”  </p><p>“What was me?” Mustang says, and Ed notes with pleasure that he hasn’t really pulled more than an inch away from him.  </p><p>“You love me,” Ed breathes, amazed. “That was you.”  </p><p>“I—” Mustang looks up at him, takes a breath, eyes filled with shame. “Yes. I’m sorry.”  </p><p>Ed blinks. “The fuck are you sorry for?”  </p><p>“Fullmetal,” Mustang protests. “You’re my subordinate, and sixteen to boot. Do you honestly—”  </p><p>“Fuck that noise,” Ed says. “You know that I’m technically, like, three thousand years old, right? And I’m quitting the military as soon as you can find the documents.”  </p><p>“Oh,” Mustang lets out a sigh of relief. “Thank <em>god. </em>”  </p><p>“You’re welcome,” Ed starts to say, but Mustang is kissing him before he can finish.  </p><p>  </p><p>When they go home, Winry cries and Al laughs and Ed knows that he loves and he is loved, and he is happy.  </p><p>“What will we do now?” Al asks the three of them.  </p><p>Winry has a determined look on her face. “I’m going to go back to Rush Valley. Those people need me.”  </p><p>Ed smiles because she’s Winry and her hands are warm and her eyes are alive and even though he’s not a god anymore and he never had that much prescience to begin with, he knows she will change the world, life by individual life.  </p><p>“I’m going East,” Ed says, surprising himself. “Mustang is going to need a lot of help fixing things up, and I like the desert anyways.” He smiles. “And you? What are you going to do, Al?”  </p><p>Al thinks about it for a moment. “I’m going to Xing. I want to learn how to heal people.”  </p><p>Ed smiles because Al is alive and well and nothing will ever keep him from helping people. Then he smiles some more, because these are the people he loves and these are the people he has chosen to believe in.   </p><p>He’s seen a lot of things that people have chosen to worship, but, in the end, these are the only ones that matters: love, and a determination to help.  </p><p>  </p><p>Edward Elric no longer has a sun burning inside him. His veins are iron and water, nothing more than the people around him. That is all he has ever needed— a body for living and people for loving, and it is good.  </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Many thanks and much love to r.m.h. who beta'd this for me.</p><p>(On the off chance that anyone wants to @ me about the title: yes, I know that the 'and' in biblical hebrew used with the future participle actually indicates past tense, so the title should probably be 'It was Good,' but I liked the 'and' so... go argue with someone who is actually qualified.)</p><p>As always: kudos appreciated, comments adored, and concrit craved.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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